Throughout The Greatest Obstacle We Face, Fried describes a languid school environment that all of us, if we’re honest with ourselves, can easily recall as being a near constant throughout our education. I certainly recognized several of the motifs discussed by Fried from my high school and early-education schooling. “The Game of School”, as defined in The Greatest Obstacle We Face, is the lackadaisical learning environment where “students pretend to learn, and teachers pretend to teach”. Throughout high school I often myself unwittingly playing “The Game of School” creating the surface-level appearance of a dedicated student while consistently avoiding unnecessary work and maintaining a high GPA with as little work as possible. Although I am trying to throw off the shackles formed by my time spent playing the game, I can still feel years of bad habits trying to take me over even in college. I believe that in order for any type of scholastic reform to be accomplished, students, teachers, and adminstrators must acknowledge that there are inherent flaws in the game being played. While teachers and students wordlessly play the game, there is no chance for schools to ever achieve real learning past the surface.
Throughout The Greatest Obstacle We Face, Fried describes a languid school environment that all of us, if we’re honest with ourselves, can easily recall as being a near constant throughout our education. I certainly recognized several of the motifs discussed by Fried from my high school and early-education schooling. “The Game of School”, as defined in The Greatest Obstacle We Face, is the lackadaisical learning environment where “students pretend to learn, and teachers pretend to teach”. Throughout high school I often myself unwittingly playing “The Game of School” creating the surface-level appearance of a dedicated student while consistently avoiding unnecessary work and maintaining a high GPA with as little work as possible. Although I am trying to throw off the shackles formed by my time spent playing the game, I can still feel years of bad habits trying to take me over even in college. I believe that in order for any type of scholastic reform to be accomplished, students, teachers, and adminstrators must acknowledge that there are inherent flaws in the game being played. While teachers and students wordlessly play the game, there is no chance for schools to ever achieve real learning past the surface.